Chapter Text
JANUARY 2016
2ND CWHL ALL-STAR GAME
“Yeah, I think it’s great,” said Shane Hollander, Captain of the Montreal Metros, when asked about the team's new partnership with its CWHL equivalent. “Hockey is for everyone, and I think this will be a great way for us to support the women already playing professional hockey.”
It was more trouble than it was worth, really. Mid-season, a barely established league, nobody expecting Shane to go even as they all acknowledged that of course it would be nice, would be sportsmanlike, but didn’t he have other things to be worrying about, right now? The women’s league would still be there next year, and if it wasn’t, well— it wouldn’t be the first one to go under, is all they were saying.
And, sure, the Metros had partnered up with Meteors. Yes Montreal’s own Gina Bouchard was captaining Team White, but still, come on, Shane. What the hell was worth travelling to Toronto?
“Liliya Rozanova?” Shane says, stepping up to the bar. Rozanova’s eyes flick to him, get stuck there, and Shane takes a breath. “I’m Shane Hollander, with the Metros. I wanted to say hi.”
“Hello,” Rozanova says.
Shane offers her his hand. She takes it, both corners of her mouth quirking upward, which is only fair. Shane assumes she’s had people fawning over her all night, congratulating her on the win, and probably everyone else has done a much smoother job of it than he has, awkwardly waiting for the right moment to catch her alone.
“You’re an awesome player to watch.”
“Yes,” says Rozanova, which startles a laugh out of him. She inclines her head, plush mouth smiling wider. “Sorry, I know it’s rude. You are also good, I think.”
“Thank you.” Shane wishes he had something in his hands, or that he'd thought about this more. Probably not a good idea to mention 2014. “I’ve, uh, been keeping up with you for a while. That goal against the Tornados last week? Insane, for real. I told the guys we’d have a better shot at the cup with you on our team, really put a fire into them, but it’s true, you’re awesome. Seriously.”
Rozanova cocks her head; it feels like a victory, her eyes flicking over him. “You are trying to flirt with me?” she asks, and Shane flushes.
“What? No, I was just— I wanted to buy you a drink, that’s all. If you want one, I mean.”
He lifts his shoulders, scratching at the corner of his mouth. “Do you? Want one?”
Rozanova considers him. Says: "Okay."
“Oh, cool. Great. What, uh. What do you want?”
“Vodka.”
“Right.” He smiles. “Is there a specific one, that’s good? I don’t really drink much.”
“Mm,” says Rozanova, smiling back. Her teeth are straight, very white, probably even all her own, but the slow baring of them reads as dangerous. “Yes, in my hotel room. 1221.”
“Oh.” Shane blinks, twitches his head in a shake. “That’s not— I mean, I wasn’t— that’s really not what I meant.”
Rozanova raises her eyebrows, lifting her glass— oh, she already has a drink, Shane is stupid— to her mouth. “Beautiful woman is inviting you to her hotel room, and you are fumbling?” she says, sipping at the liquid. Not vodka, maybe whiskey? Something orange. “Yes, Hollander. That is what you want, no? Might as well cut the foreplay.”
“Oh,” says Shane, again. “Um, I actually just kind of wanted to talk to you about hockey.”
She blinks, and her eyes narrow. “You are making fun of me.”
“No! No, Jesus, I’m so bad at this. I swear, all I wanted was to introduce myself, not— not anything else. Not that you’re not, like, beautiful, or whatever, it’s just… I just wanted to talk to you. That’s all.”
“Hm,” says Rozanova, after a pause. “Okay.”
She twists, leaning back over the bar, and gestures for the bartender with her free hand, two fingers crooked twice in the air. “I'm buying you a drink,” she says, and something kicks in Shane’s stomach, unexpected. “We will sit at the table together and talk boring hockey, and then I will take you to my room and we will talk some more, okay?”
“Okay,” says Shane, a little blindsided. “Sure, yeah.”
“Okay,” says Rozanova. “Go and get a table, I will follow you.”
Shane nods, turns to make his way back into the throng of people, the players and the guests and the waitstaff, and ignores whatever is prickling at the back of his neck. He’s sure it’s fine. It’s probably not even anything, because Shane has to be on a plane in twelve hours, at least six of which he needs to sleep through, and he probably should have skipped the after party entirely, but he didn’t and that’s still fine, Shane can still turn this around. It doesn’t even have to mean anything, seriously.
He finds an empty table and Rozanova joins him within moments, waltzing over with her own drink topped up, something that Shane strongly suspects is beer in a fancy glass held in her other hand. “You do not drink much?” she says, offering it to him.
“Not usually.” Her knees brush against his when she sits across from him. “But we’re celebrating, right?”
“Celebrating,” she snorts. “Yes, okay. That’s what you call it?”
“It was a good game.”
“Mm, sure, good game.”
“It was!” defends Shane. “You must be, uh, excited, right? To be the first international player?”
Rozanova shrugs, her shoulders lifting. She’s wearing a suit, very well-cut and tailored neatly to her body, a deeply unbuttoned black shirt underneath it. The gold cross hanging from her neck keeps catching the light. It’s fine, right, that Shane wants to talk to one of the only players wearing a suit? That’s normal? Like, everyone else looks nice, sure, but Rozanova still looks how she did on the ice, like a powerhouse. It’s not weird for Shane to be drawn to that, she’s still a woman. She has long hair and everything.
“I suppose,” she says. “Would be more exciting if they named me the best.”
“You think so?”
“It’s why they give me the C, no?”
“I guess.”
“You think you are better? You think they name you captain of All Stars, too?”
“I mean…”
“Right, right, I forget,” she says. “Shane Hollander, he is a big deal. Easy to beat a big deal, I think.”
Shane feels himself flinch, affronted. An insult rises up in his mouth, ready to be lobbed, but he swallows it back because it’s— it’s bad form, right, to tell a woman to fuck off? That’s bad?
Rozanova grins at him. “You think I am asshole,” she announces, proudly. “Good, it's true. The American word for it is cocky, I think.”
Shane huffs a laugh. “I mean, I think you have a right to be.”
The surprised look on her face is worth it, and he shrugs again. “I already told you you’re good. I’m not saying I couldn't beat you, but…” He feels kind of crazy as he lifts his glass to his mouth, catching her eye. “Maybe it’d be fun to find out.”
“Oh?” says Rozanova, leaning forward so her necklace swings. “You want to go right now, back to arena? Yes?”
“Jesus.”
“What, you are scared?”
“I’m not scared.”
“I think you are scared. You are scared big Russian woman will show you up, bad for image, bad for business.”
“No, it’s not that,” says Shane, cheeks hot. “I just— I think maybe we’d have a little too much fun with it.”
“Ah,” says Rozanova. “I see.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
“Like what?”
“Your drink.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s nice. Yours?”
“Yes,” she echoes. She reaches out with one hand, drags her pointer finger across the back of his hand. At the same time, her knee nudges between his beneath the table, and Shane stalls. The bed of her fingernail is very square. “Hollander, be honest with me. You don’t want to fuck?”
“I—” His head jerks up, gets pinned by her gaze, heady and serious. Her knee gets more insistent, and Shane lets his legs fall apart, feeling dizzy. “I don’t know. Do you?”
“Shane Hollander came to see me,” she says, slowly. “He thinks I am a good player. This is gratifying. And gratification—” Her whole palm, now, pressed against his hand, swallowing it. “—feels very, very good.”
“Oh,” says Shane. “Then, uh. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
Jesus Christ, maybe this whole time Shane just needed to be dating hockey players, specifically, instead of women. Hayden is going to have a field day with this.
“Good,” says Rozanova, like he’s answered right. “Okay, then. Room 1221, you remember? Nine o’clock, you will knock.”
“It’s 8:53,” he says, and she pulls a face. “I’ve gotta say goodbye to people—”
“Yes, me also. I will race you.”
“You’ll race me?”
“Yes,” says Rozanova, with that big grin again. She squeezes his hand, drops it, rearranges the collar of her shirt. “And I will win, which is why you will knock.”
“Is that right?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Fine,” says Shane, feeling wild. “Fine, okay. You’re on.”
He holds his hand out straight across the table, and Rozanova shakes it. Leans in close. Says: “Go.”
*
Shane does end up having to knock.
He just— he wasn’t great at it, the sidling up to people and waiting for a break in the conversation, a lull big enough for him to switch the conversation to how it was time for him to go, he has to be on a plane tomorrow, they’ve got a game, yeah, he’s looking forward to it. That wasn’t even really a lie, which was nice. The detour to Rozanova’s room is just that— a detour.
She’s already lost her suit jacket when she opens the door, and half of her shirt is untucked from her pants, bunching at the waist. He feels foggy, kind of unsteady as he looks at her, the equal sensations of wow, holy shit, and oh, maybe this time it’ll actually work rising up in his chest, vying for attention.
“Nice room,” he says, and then she has a hand on his chest and is guiding him backwards, his shoulders making contact with the door, pushing it closed. It clicks at the same time Rozanova’s mouth does, her lips parting with a glint. “Hi.”
“Hello,” she says, splaying her hand across his chest, watching her fingers. “I beat you.”
“Yeah.”
She leans closer, nudges his jaw up with her nose, and Shane tips his head back, succumbing to the tide. The first kiss to his skin is soft and mostly dry. “I thought you might chicken out.”
“Why? I mean, I’m not a chicken.”
“Mm, no. But—” She pulls away, eyes flicking between his own. “Do you do this often? With women?”
“Do what?”
Her mouth quirks. “This,” she says. Her hand travels higher, like she’s feeling him up. “Take them to hotel rooms, fuck them.”
“Oh. Uh, not really.”
She smiles wider, her straight teeth shining in the low light of the lamps. “I didn't think so. I am special, then.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s nice,” she says, and carefully puts her face to his neck again, plants several more kisses down the column of his throat. Shane obeys the movement, and her breath ghosts along his neck. “You can touch me, if you want to.”
He puts his hands on her waist, careful of the silky fabric. Rozanova’s hand slides from his chest to his neck, his jaw, and then she takes his chin in hand and pulls it to her mouth, kisses him. Shane goes a little light-headed.
It’s not that he hasn’t had sex, or anything like that. It’s not even that he hasn’t liked sex, before. But there’s something to her arrogance, her assuredness, that doesn’t make him feel like she’s waiting for him to step up, to do a dance they’re both supposed to be experts in. She’s leading, it feels comfortable for her to lead, and Shane is finding her easier to follow than anyone else has ever been in his life. That alone is intoxicating.
Rozanova pulls him towards the bed, fisting her hands in his shirt and tugging it up. Shane copies her, and when she lets go and they get both shirts over their heads, her armpits are unshaven. He blinks at them, tongue heavy in his mouth. Rozanova’s eyes rove over his face again, something closed off and hidden behind them, something electric.
“On the bed,” she says, and Shane obeys. She climbs over him, plants her hands by his shoulders, knees either side of his hips. “This okay?”
Shane nods. She leans down to kiss him, dripping, weighty ones dropped onto his mouth and chin. He settles his hands on her shoulders and tries not to think about how this is weird— how he feels like a girl, almost, even as her necklace dangles down between them, bumps against Shane’s collarbones. “Can I blow you?”
“Yes,” Shane says, nodding. “If you want.”
That hidden thing glints in her eyes again. “I want.”
Shane’s had this done to him before. He’s always had to reach for it, to talk himself into a headspace where it feels good for him, where he can just focus on the sensation, and he can feel himself trying to slip into that pattern now, but it’s like it keeps hitting a wall, or jumping a wall, or maybe slipping past an electric fence. He’s never been this curious, before. He’s never wanted to know what a woman’s mouth feels like on his dick. But Rozanova—
It’s like she sees something, maybe. If there are things Shane’s tried to hide, which there are, then the big one has always been the gay thing. He doesn’t really get attracted to people, doesn’t often find desire kicking in his gut, but when he does, well. So far it’s always been men. He thought that meant something, but it was so few and far between that it was easy to ignore, easy to forget about and easy to not compare to his girlfriends. Not comparing Rozanova to the women of the past suddenly seems impossible. Maybe it’s not Shane’s fault at all.
She’s very handsome. That’s a word that they used to use for women, Shane knows that from his mom. She has straight features, strong lines in her face. He thumbs at them while she positions herself over his dick, as she works on getting his pants and underwear down and off him. There’s objectively nothing weird about it, the two of them together, but— in her eyes, again. The knowledge that this is something clandestine.
Rozanova puts her mouth on Shane’s dick, sucks him down. Shane tips his head back and goes back in time to watching her on the ice, body hidden under all that padding, nothing but sharp clean strokes and the thud of bodies against the glass, that second period goal she scored, the electricity. That moment where he knew, seconds before she did it, that she’d be taking off after Bouchard and winning. Shane could have stopped that, if he’d been down there. They could’ve had a real competition.
Rozanova flicks her tongue under the head and Shane jolts, pulling himself back to reality. She’s really pulling out all the stops, he should— he should probably try and come, right, or— maybe pretend that he’s close, make her stop? Because he’s probably still going to have to fuck her, so he better not— she won’t want him to come straight down her throat, that would be—
The hand massaging his ass travels down further, fingers inching inward, down to—
Shane lurches off the bed, heart pounding. “What are you doing?”
She comes off him with a wet noise, like a pop, and squeezes his ass again. The problematic hand withdraws slightly, thumbing instead at the skin close by. “Testing a theory,” she says. “You like?”
As if it’s the drink she gave to him at the bar. He splutters. Rozanova rolls her eyes.
“It's just an asshole, Hollander,” she says. “It does not make you gay.”
She flicks her eyes up and down his body again. “Or maybe it does, but don’t worry.” Leaning in, lips curling, her breath on his cock. “I won’t tell.”
Shane swallows. He breathes, hard and harsh, through his nose, and she tips her head to the side.
“If you don’t want, I won’t do it,” she says, simply. “The touching, not the blowjob, it's not, ah, contingent. It doesn’t matter to me. But if you would like, then—"
She shrugs, lets the sentence taper. Shane stares at her, and he is a bad person, maybe, for thinking that women just, like, didn’t talk like this. Maybe he needs to talk to more of them. Maybe he should exclusively start going out with women who wear leather.
He’s going to— not lie, not really, but he’s going to say no, because, well, obviously, but she also— she kind of looks like she already knows, like she can feel it, and also, she did it first, so maybe it’s— fine. Maybe it’s fine. She must do this a lot to even think of it in the first place, so maybe it’s like, a kink of hers, or something. Maybe she won’t mind.
“I didn’t clean up,” he says, and Rozanova’s face does something new. Shane gets the sense that he’s impressed her, that he’s done good.
“Ah, so you know this thing,” she says, and strokes a hard, deliberate line with her thumb. “Good. I am learning lots about you, Hollander.”
“Shut up,” Shane says, and she kisses his thigh, noses at his cock again.
“Ah, no,” she says, lips trailing upward. “You do not want that. I am worldly person, not much will surprise me.”
“Really?”
“Really,” she says, and then she redoubles her efforts to claim the title of best sex of his life by lowering her mouth onto his cock at the same time her thumb presses at his hole, holy fuck, and those are two actions Shane absolutely cannot pull off by himself and they feel really fucking good.
“Holy shit,” Shane says, shocked into it. "Fuck, shit, you gotta get off, I'm gonna—"
Rozanova pushes another finger against him and Shane comes, right down her throat, and then she pulls off him and beams. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand and crawls up the bed, flopping down beside him and pulling him into a kiss. Shane follows, helpless, his brain buzzing a bit, and he could— he can see, kind of, why people do this. Why people might do this. She pats his cheek twice and falls away.
Shane closes his eyes, breathes in and out of his lungs. “Sorry,” he says, when he can, and she frowns. “I didn’t think—”
“What, that you would come? I would be a shitty fucking lover if you did not.”
“No, but. I mean, I probably won’t— if you wanted me to, uh, fuck you, then—”
“Ah, no,” she says. “That is not why I invited you here. I mean, yes, but— is so boring, always having sex the one way. This was nice.”
“Oh. Well, thanks, I guess. You didn’t have to.”
Rozanova rolls onto her side, props her head on one hand. “I don’t mind.”
Shane looks at her. She’s still wearing her bra, but there’s a flushed, sweaty sheen on her chest where it rises, the skin dotted with moles. The bra is black and made of lace and he can see her nipples through the fabric, pink and puffy. Shane touches one of the straps, dips his finger underneath it to find skin. “I haven’t, uh…”
Rozanova watches him, her eyes curious, contemplative. “Haven’t what, Hollander? Fucked someone?”
“No, not that. I haven’t ever— eaten anyone out. If that’s— what you’re wanting, um, instead.”
“I will teach you.”
“I might be bad at it.”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “I know you, you are dedicated, yes? Always solving problems, following instincts.” She puts her hand on his, guides it down her chest, past her stomach, and is polite enough not to mention the way his fingers trip. She touches them to the waistband of her briefs, black boyshorts that don’t match the bra. “Is instinctual here too, I promise, if you want.”
Shane swallows. “I want,” he says, and means it.
“Okay,” says Roz. “Touch.”
The first thing he notices is that the underwear is slippery. It’s not immediately clear if that’s because his hand is sweating or if it’s her, leaking through the fabric, so he pushes two fingers against her, moves them up and down, and she makes this funny whining sound in the back of her throat. The heel of his palm pushes down on her waistband, presses against coarse hair. Jesus Christ, the fabric is wet. That can’t be normal. He frowns down at it, watching his own hand move, but it— it doesn’t feel that bad, honestly. He feels pretty okay.
“Can you—” His face flushes. “Will you tell me what to do?”
“Mm,” says Rozanova, nodding. “Yes, sure. Down the bed, get eye level.”
Shane shuffles down as she wriggles out of her underwear, kisses her thigh because that’s what she did to him, and works his way towards the inner skin of it. She smells. Is that weird, to notice? Shane’s pretty sure it’s weird to be— turned on by it, if that’s what he is. He thinks he’s turned on by it. It feels like he is, probably. Which is weird, in this context, but maybe it’s just because he actually likes her. She’s funny. She’s the first woman he’s ever really felt any kind of curiosity about, this weird burrowing feeling like he wants to uncover her, and it’s kind of heady, thinking about it like that. Like, he’s in bed with a woman, right now, and he's nailing it. That’s hot.
Determined, Shane nudges himself higher, gets a faceful of her pubes. He feels kind of drunk, to be honest, like his mouth might actually be watering and drooling against her. Jesus Christ, he’s about to eat out Liliya Rozanova. Holy shit. He looks up along the length of her body, finds her wild eyes.
“Are you,” he starts, and it must, like, ghost over her, or something, because her whole— her whole pussy jolts upward on the bed, pushing into his face. “Oh, um—”
“Fuck, Hollander,” Rozanova says, her hands clenching in the sheets. “Put your mouth on me now.”
It’s messy and Shane’s not convinced he’s that good at it, but she seems to like it. She grinds herself on the bridge of his nose throughout, and her own sticky fingers push against his face, his cheek, when she brings them down to assist. Shane licks and sucks and feels like an idiot, his mouth so wide and his tongue so far out, but Rozanova just grunts and says god, fuck, Hollander, like that, slower, faster, yes, there, fuck, and her hand rests heavy in his hair, almost comforting in the way it drags up and down, hair bristling under her touch. She tastes like the beach and when she comes there is a lot of liquid, more than Shane thinks there’s ever been with any of his other girlfriends, and it changes the texture of what he’s lapping at, turns it slippery, watery.
“Fuck,” she says, voice deep, and that combined with the sudden brutal grip on his hair has Shane thinking that maybe he could actually pull this off for real this time, if he tried enough. That's novel.
Rozanova drags him up for air, deposits his head against her sweaty thigh and lets him stare at her, catching his breath. When she props herself on her elbows to look down at him she's smiling, and he smiles back. Then she tips her head towards the ceiling, baring the long line of her neck, and says, on the exhale: “Whoo!”
He laughs, turns his face into her thigh. Her hand gentles. “Alright?”
“Better than,” agrees Rozanova, and pulls him back up to her. She kisses him again, puts her tongue in his mouth like she wants to taste herself. “Well done, Hollander.”
Embarrassingly, he preens at it.
“Thanks. I mean, not thanks, but—”
She smiles again. Then, like she’s embarrassed, she bites down on it, looks at her hand on his neck and gives it an experimental squeeze. Shane feels a little faint.
“Thank you for coming to the game,” she says, at last. “Was good reward for me, bagging MLH’s golden boy.”
“Yeah, sure. Anytime.”
She nods. “You have places to be?”
“Oh.” Right, yeah. Of course. “Yeah, I should—”
He gets up from the bed, picks his suit pants up from the floor and steps back into them, buckles his belt. Rozanova watches him with lazy eyes, and fishes a cigarette out from the packet on the table.
“Smoking is bad for you,” he says, and she rolls her eyes.
“No shit,” she says, and puts it unlit between her teeth. “Give me your phone, I want it.”
Shane passes it to her, then shakes out his shirt. He slips his arms into each sleeve, buttons the white fabric back into something presentable. Rozanova’s mouth curls around the cigarette. He steps into his shoes and folds his suit jacket over his arm, stands there for an uncertain moment. “Uh—”
Rozanova twists her head, runs a hand through her curls. “Come here,” she says, and Shane crosses back over to the bed. She gets a hand on his shirt and pulls, untucking it from his waistband and using it to drag him down into a kiss, and it’s— it’s a really good one, it makes Shane feel like he’s in a movie. She pats his cheek twice when she’s done, slipping the phone back into his hand.
“Good night, Hollander,” she says, and he nods.
“Good night.”
He gets to the elevator, somehow, leans back against the wall and tips his face high up to the ceiling, closing his eyes against the light. That was really good, he thinks, kind of numbly. That was, like, really good. With a woman. With Rozanova. Shane had sex with a woman and it was good.
His mouth feels weird the whole way up; he raises his hand to it and finds out he’s smiling.